I’ve not followed the Whitey Bulger trial extremely closely, but from what I’ve seen it would seem that he is not actually defending much against - or even denying, for the most part - the actual charges against him. Instead, his goal in his “defense” is to upkeep his reputation and his “good name” in a criminal context.
As such, the focus of his defense has been to deny that he was ever an FBI informant (he claims this was invented by the feds to cover their corrupt cooperation with him) or that he murdered women in particular.
ISTM that these are issues that concern him more than the public at large, and that the trial is therefore a waste of money (other than the entertainment value of course).
But it got me to wondering - is there in general some obligation on the defense team to actually put on a defense? Or can the defense forgo this and use the trial for their own ends as long as they enter a “not guilty” plea?
Lawyers to me seem to be quite competitive, and I would think they will do their very best for their client. The glory of “winning” is too much to not try.
And of course they should do their best for their client.
It doesn’t seem like there’s any serious chance that Whitey Bulger beats the rap, and he knows it and his lawyers know it.
And lawyers take all sorts of cases where there’s no chance of winning, especially high profile cases.
But I’m not sure what yuour point is anyway. Is what you’re saying an argument that my impression must be wrong and that his lawyers are in fact advancing arguments and/or evidence that would clear him? Or are you saying that this is a rare situation such that there’s no need to makes trial rules to prevent it from arising?
IANAL but I don’t believe there is any requirement for the defense team to present its own evidence, aside from what it’s done during cross-examination to challenge the prosecution’s case. The defense may feel that the prosecution’s case is so weak that it can rest immediately. BTW, this does not necessarily mean that they are “using the trial for their own ends” unless by ends you mean properly defending the client. The defense counsel may feel that the prosecution’s case is so weak that the jury will recognize that the case has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
That doesn’t seem to be the case here, and AFAICT Bulger admits to murdering most of the people he is accused of murdering. His claim seems to be that he only murdered “rats”, which may be important to him but has no legal standing.
If you’re talking specifically about this case, why did you ask if “there is in general some obligation on the defense team to actually put on a defense?”
Anything that’s true in general would apply in this case, unless there was some specific exception. From the fact that this case is playing out the way it seems to be doing would seem to be an indicator that there is no general obligation to do this.
But I could be wrong about this case, or it could be that this is some exception, hence my question.
But if your response is that the defense sometimes thinks the prosecution is so weak etc., well yeah, that might be true sometimes, but in this case that doesn’t seem to be true and they’re still conducting a whole trial about it. Which seems to indicate, as above, that as long as you’re willing to plead non-guilty you can practically concede actual guilt and proceed to use the trial to clear your name of the crime of being a rat or killing non-rats and so on.
The judge can rule that certain evidence or testimony is irrelevant or inadmissible if they felt like the defense was truly off on a tangent. Judges give quite a bit of leniency, I hear, but if the judge here is allowing the defense to keep going, there must be at least some relevancy to the case.
The defense seems to think that casting doubt on the veracity of the eyewitnesses (to these crimes) will save him. However, most of these eyewitnesses were his partners in crime. Frankly, who cares? Whitey is 83, and unlikely to survive more than a few more years. Give him a 10 years sentence and leave it at that.
In practical terms, what governs this is the willingness of opposing counsel to object and the willingness of the court to sustain those objections. And, in really practical terms, what tends to govern that in my experience is the general principle “fine, say what you want to say and let’s be done with it.”
There are evidentiary standards that apply and would serve to limit the extent to which the defense can go off on wild tangents, but I’m not sure if that’s what you mean by an obligation to put on a defense. In general, the defense is entitled to introduce anything that is relevant (definition), and not anything that isn’t. Without knowing almost anything about the specifics of the case, I can’t speak to anything that’s going on in the Bulger trial, but I’m sure you can imagine that quite a lot of evidence is relevant by the above definition. If he’s putting on evidence which tends to make it seem less likely that he was an FBI informant, and his being an FBI informant is of consequence to the charges against him, that is, broadly speaking, relevant and thus, broadly speaking, a “defense.” Likewise, if there are specific charges against him that he murdered certain women, any evidence he puts on that tends to demonstrate that he didn’t murder women is material to the disposition of those specific charges, even if he is silent on or even acknowledges other murders. So that is, again, a defense.
The prosecution can certainly cut in and ask that the court rule that his evidence is unnecessarily confusing, or redundant or is otherwise wasting everyone’s time, and the court can certainly do so. In my experience, though, like I said and like dracoi suggested, trial judges are generally pretty willing to give a long leash because they’d prefer having their time wasted by boring testimony for a couple of afternoons to having their time wasted by having to file an opinion explaining their decision when they get appealed, or rehearing the whole damn thing when the appeal is sustained. So, sure, put on your boring and ultimately frivolous defense, as long as when this is over it’s over.
